Furry Little Problem
by Greathe
Summary: Second Year. Remus' friends confront him with a truth he wishes would stay hidden. But their reactions are beyond anything he ever expected. One-shot, MWPP era, Not romance. Rated T for a single joke, just to be safe.


_**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Harry Potter. Those rights belong to J.K. Rowling and the companies involved in publishing her work. Anything you see in this story that you recognize belongs to the aforementioned parties.**_

**Summary: Second Year. Remus' friends confront him with a truth he wishes would stay hidden. But their reactions are beyond anything he ever expected. One-shot, MWPP era, Not romance. **

_**A/N: **__This is my fourth one-shot in my loosely connected series of one-shots. There is absolutely no reason you have to read the other ones to enjoy this one, because this takes place before any of the ones currently out anyway. _

Remus knew that they knew. He was also fairly certain that they _knew_ that he knew that they knew. Or, put another way, he suspected that they knew that he knew that they knew. Of course all of this circular thinking to avoid the subject didn't change the underlying fact of the matter;that he'd been found out by his friends.

To most people, James' request during breakfast would have seemed casual enough. All James said was, "Hey, we're going to meet in the dormitory after class. We need to talk about something," before he'd walked off to go pick a fight with Severus Snape. But Remus, who had been waiting to see that expression in the eyes of his friends since he'd started at Hogwarts, spotted the pity in his eyes immediately.

They knew.

Or at least James knew, and Remus couldn't imagine he wouldn't have at least filled in Sirius; probably Peter as well. As such, Remus had spent the day avoiding all three of them, sitting with Emmeline Vance and Paige Burbage during lessons instead. After their last lesson of the day (Charms) had finished, he had made sure to pack up in advance and had stormed out before his friends had a chance to say anything. He had managed to avoid them outside of class by hiding in deserted parts of the castle, including an unused classroom during lunch and an abandoned corridor on the third floor after classes. He had hidden straight through dinner, eager to avoid the inevitable for as long as possible.

Now, though, as curfew loomed, he approached the portrait of the Fat Lady with the demeanor of a boy walking to his doom.

Remus had never been foolish enough to imagine he would make it through seven years at Hogwarts without anyone finding out about his lycanthropy, even if his parents and professors liked to pretend it was possible. He'd realized quickly that, at the very least, his friends would eventually make the connection. At first they hadn't questioned the stories he'd made up to hide his visits to the shack, about his mother being sick, or his cousin dying. But when his mother had gotten seriously ill for the third time in 5 months, only to recover each time within three days, his friends had begun to get suspicious. They had never come out and said as much, but they would slip in questions from time to time, asking him how his mother was doing, trying to trip him up by switching details around.

Remus was positive that, for a while, they had believed _he_ was the one who was deathly ill, and he supposed in a way that train of thought wasn't far from the truth. There had been a point, about two-thirds of the way through first year, when they had begun to treat him as if he were fragile; insisting he eat full meals, trying to talk him out of strenuous activities, and, in Peter's case, going so far as to hold doors open for Remus. It had confused him at first, but once he'd figured out their motivation he had been quick to disabuse them of that notion that he was sick. Reassured, their treatment of him had returned to normal; however, their suspicion hadn't gone away.

And now it seemed they had come across the truth. How they'd figured it out was immaterial (though in the back of his mind he did wonder, as he had been extremely careful to cover his tracks). The point was, they knew. And everything was about to change.

"Password?" the Fat Lady asked, her tone suggesting she was unimpressed with how close Remus was cutting it to curfew.

"Lions' Den," he replied. In spite of himself, he rolled his eyes at the password that had been implemented a week previously. _What is the point of having a password if it is something that obvious? _

Remus had no sooner set foot in the common room before he was confronted with the presence of one of his friends.

"Remus!" Sirius said, springing up from a chair by the fireplace. "Where have you been? We've been looking for you for hours!"

Sirius had a large smile plastered on his face, but Remus could tell it was forced. Whenever Sirius was pretending he was happier than he was, his smile got just a bit too big; unnaturally so. It looked as if he were testing how wide his mouth would stretch. Still, if he was going to pretend everything was fine, so would Remus.

"Sorry," he said, similarly forcing his own smile. "I got held up in the library. That essay McGonagall assigned was horrendous."

Never mind that the library was probably the first place they had checked. Or that he had finished that essay the night before, while walking James and Sirius through the nuances of the assignment.

Sirius seemed willing to propagate the lie however. "Yeah, of course. I don't know why we didn't check there."

The silence before he spoke again was just a second too long. Then he continued, "Hey, James mentioned we wanted to talk to you, right?"

Remus nodded. "Yes, he mentioned something about that. It's a bit late for a talk though, isn't it?"

Remus was hoping for a chance to delay the inevitable, even if only for another day. But Sirius shook his head quickly.

"No, I'm sure they're still awake," he said. "We should get up there though."

And that was that. Without another word, Sirius started heading up to the dormitory, and Remus followed. There was no delaying it any longer.

When they got to the dormitory, Sirius wasted no time in crossing to his bed and taking a seat. He angled himself so he was facing Remus, who had stopped right inside of the doorway. James was similarly situated on his own bed. He had been talking to Peter about something, but their conversation came to an abrupt halt the moment Remus and Sirius showed up. Peter, for his part, was standing between Sirius' and James' beds, looking as nervous as Remus felt.

James spoke up first. "Remus! You're here. Good."

Remus nodded, but gave no other outward sign of acknowledgement. His gaze turned towards the floor as he was suddenly unable to meet his friends' eyes. The whole group fell into silence as everyone waited for someone else to start the conversation. At least a minute passed this way, though to Remus it felt like much longer. Finally, he couldn't handle the wait anymore.

"How did you find out?" he asked, still not looking up from the floor.

In his head, he imagined the three of them exchanging glances, the way he'd seen them do when confronted by one of their professors. Then James said, "It was actually Pete who figured it out, if you can believe it."

Remus glanced up, not quite able to mask his surprise at that revelation. It wasn't that he thought Peter was stupid; quite the opposite in fact. While Peter was not as savvy as his friends when it came to "book knowledge" he had a certain degree of common sense that made up for his lack of academic prowess. But in spite of that, Peter was horrible at reading people, so he wondered what could have given it away to Peter without James or Sirius picking up on it.

Peter evidently took James' comment as his cue, because he cleared his throat and started to explain. He was looking at his hands, which were clasped together in front of him, only occasionally looking up to meet Remus' eyes. "I- Well- You see it was kind of j-just a stroke of luck." Remus noted he was stuttering; a habit of his when something made him uncomfortable. "I had wanted to- to ask you, you see, about- about the effect of a full moon on certain potions, because I'd been read-ding and I was curious and… well, I kept forgetting. And every time I would remember- I would remember because I realized it was a full moon. But I wouldn't be able to ask you because- because you'd be away. And after the third or… well, I noticed you were always away during the full moon."

Sirius, perhaps out of pity for Peter, took over. "Well, at that point he told us he'd figured it out, and it made a lot of sense, mate, with things we'd noticed: The bruises and scratches you sometimes have on your arm, how awful you'd look when you'd get back, your reaction when you heard Greyback escaped ministry custody last month. It explained a lot."

"Yes," Remus said. "I suppose it did."

Quiet fell once more. Remus crossed over to his own bed and sat down, feeling abruptly drained. His gaze drifted to the floorboards once more. In Remus' mind the distance between he and his friends felt insurmountable. Talking to his best friends felt like talking to perfect strangers.

Seconds ticked by at a snail's pace, until James broke the silence. "Remus, why didn't you tell us that you're a werewolf?"

And there it was, finally said out loud. No more hinting. The word was out in the open, plain-spoken. Trust James to stop beating around the bush and get to the crux of the matter.

Remus had rehearsed this conversation in his head countless times over the past year, preparing himself for the inevitable rejection he was sure would come soon. But in the moment every prepared platitude, every line of dialogue fled from his mind, making him feel cornered. He lifted his gaze to meet James eyes, suddenly defiant.

"You know why, James," he said, resisting the urge to grit his teeth. "Don't- don't pretend you don't know why I didn't tell you!"

James shook his head slowly. "I don't-"

"You do," Remus bit back. "You've all heard the horror stories about people like me. Merlin, our first night here Sirius told us one of them." If Remus had looked in Sirius' direction, he would have seen his friend looked rather chagrined at that reminder, but Remus' focus was entirely on James. "I'm… I'm a werewolf! I'm a monster! I'm the story that parents use to keep little kids from getting into trouble. People are scared of people like me! And for good reason. During the full moon, I have no control. I've nearly killed my own father three times! And in spite of the fact that he pretends it isn't a big deal..." Remus faltered, but then found the strength to finish his thought.

"He's scared of me. And for good reason. He should be scared."

Remus fell silent. His friends were now the ones who couldn't meet Remus' eyes. Peter kept shifting his weight as he stood; he couldn't have looked more uncomfortable if he'd tried. Sirius had developed a sudden interest in his own hands, which were twiddling slowly. Remus waited a moment, giving them a chance to speak up. Only James looked as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't seem to work himself up to actually speak. Seeing this, Remus continued, "And that is why I didn't tell you. You don't _tell_ people things like this! You keep it to yourself."

He paused again, feeling both satisfied that he'd stunned them into silence and desperate for them to say anything. It was James who answered this prayer, running his hand through his hair as he spoke.

"You aren't a monster, Remus." James said, sounding far too much like Remus' father for his comfort.

"You know I am," Remus bit back immediately. He looked around the room. Sirius and Peter were beginning to reconnect with the conversation. Remus looked towards the window, taking a deep breath to steel himself for what he had to offer to do next.

"I'll go and get packed then."

He turned back to his friends, expecting looks of relief, or satisfaction. But that wasn't what he saw. Peter looked to James and Sirius, as if expecting one of them to explain Remus' pronouncement. Sirius, for his part, was smirking, as if he thought Remus was joking. James was a little more difficult for Remus to read, but it was almost as if he had realized something he hadn't before.

It was Sirius who was the first to respond. "Oy, mate, what are you on about exactly?"

Remus had thought his statement was perfectly clear. He repeated, "I'll go and get packed."

When again they didn't react the way he'd expected them to, he clarified, "You want me gone, right? I'll pack up and see Dumbledore in the morning. Tell him this isn't working out. I'll be home-schooled, which isn't that big of a-"

Sirius cut in, standing up as he spoke. "Why on earth do you think we would want that?" he asked, his tone suggesting he thought Remus had lost it.

Remus was taken aback by this. Hope began to bubble to the surface at Sirius' words, but he tried to bite it down. "Well you want me to leave, right? After all, I'm a werewolf."

This time it was James who responded, his matter of fact tone matching the light smile on his face. "And I'm an Aries, what's your point?"

Remus felt the heat rush to his face. "It isn't funny James!" he said.

James smile faltered. "You're right," he replied, as serious as Remus had ever seen him, "it isn't funny. It's ridiculous. Remus, did you really think we'd want you to leave just because you're a werewolf?"

Remus, shocked as he was at the implications of that response, didn't answer. His silence, though, was answer enough for his friends.

"Remus," James said, "we don't care. You're a werewolf. So what? That doesn't make you a monster. It just means that you're slightly more dangerous than usual for three days out of the month. My dad says girls are slightly more dangerous than usual _five _days out of the month, and nobody turns against them, do they?"

Remus was struck with the intuition that James didn't have any idea what his dad had been talking about when he'd said that, and filed that under something to address at another point before Sirius broke in.

"Remus, you prat! We made a promise last year to be there for each other. And that didn't just mean the good stuff. It meant all of it. And besides, being a werewolf isn't something we'd want to kick you out for. I mean, it's hardly your fault, is it?"

Peter chimed in at that point, speaking far more confidently than he had earlier. "Remus, we want to help you. We spent most of the day looking up ways to be there with you, and we haven't found anything yet, but we have some ideas and… well, we'll figure something out."

Remus was still trying to take all of this in when James spoke again. "Remus," he said, grinning. "Don't be thick. What do we care if you have a- a…" James seemed to be searching for the appropriate words, squeezing his right hand in midair as if trying to grab hold of them. Then, instead of the appropriate words, he found some other ones. "A _furry little problem?_"

When James described Remus' lycanthropy as a "_furry little problem_", the absurdity of that statement hit him hard. He started to laugh, softly at first, but it built and built into a resounding crescendo, until he was trying to stifle it by placing his hand over his mouth to block out the sound. His other hand clenched his stomach, which was beginning to hurt from laughing so hard, as his eyes filled with tears.

When he gained enough control over himself to pay attention to his surroundings, he saw his friends were looking at him with, if possible, more concern than they had been before. Sirius had gotten off his bed and taken a couple of cautious steps towards Remus, the way someone might approach a feral animal.

"James!" he said. "I think Remus finally lost it!"

James and Peter both responded at the same time. "Shut up, Sirius."

If anything, this exchange just made Remus laugh harder. "James!" he rasped out between chortles. "Only… only you… would describe…" His sentence began to become more muddled as he began to be swept up in laughter again. "Furry… little… problem."

And at that, the other three began to join in his laughter, and if they were a bit hesitant about it at first, Remus didn't notice.

_**A/N: **__That's that. I hope you enjoyed the story. Feel free to leave a review, even if you hated it. Just be constructive if you did hate it; flames will be used to roast marshmallows._


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